Planting Farmer Gracy Bare Root Perennials, Cannas & Caladiums

Welcome back to my garden in Essex. Spring is here, there's quite a few things waking up which is very exciting so I thought I'd just show you a couple of the things which are catching my eye at the moment. We've got this beautiful euphorbia, got little tiny flowers, it is so pretty. We also have the petunia red robin which looks like it's just about to burst into red glory which is wonderful. Lots of beautiful daffodils are opening now so that's exciting. But what is exciting to me is I have had a delivery from Farmer Gracie, the wonderful place in the Netherlands, have brought me some new wonders for my garden. So we have some bare rooted perennials which are soaking at the moment. They're supposed to soak for three to six hours it says in the little leaflet and on their website. So I have some veronicastrum, I have hardy geraniums and I have some echinacea. So going to plant those straight out because they're all hardy and they can all go straight out into the garden today so that would be good. And the other thing I've ordered is I ordered the lush leaves collection of cannas. So there's four beautiful ones which we can't plant those out yet but we can start them off in pots and get them going indoors in the windowsill along with two beautiful sets of different caladiums which I have. So I'm going to do that as well. There is one sad thing that I have to do and that is remove my beloved hebe. The hebe is not recovering. The hebe is rather a tragedy from the winter. So there we are. You have to appreciate things while they're there. That's the lesson. I think I may be losing another plant which is dear to my heart which is one of my standard lemon cypresses. The two of them flank the pathway and I've really enjoyed that look but one of them is very brown. I'll hold out on that one for a little while. Let's take the hebe out then we can focus on the wonderful new things from Farmer Gracie. So it's time to take out, let it go. As Elsa says in Frozen, got to do an Elsa and let it go. Here we go. I need to just try not to disturb my daffodils in the process. Let's take it over here a bit. Goodbye my friend. Yeah it really is dead all the way through so it was never going to recover. Right Lottie look this is what we've got. We have bare-rooted perennials which are soaking here. Looking very good. You can see the growth points there. Veronicastrum cupid tells me the plant in depth and everything on there. Tells me how high they're going to go and these ones are happy in part shade or full sun. They're going to be purple. I need to plant them three to five centimetres deep. They're going to be 1.2 to 1.8 metres in height. Sweet meadow mama and these are Echinacea pink, peach and coral. So they're like two-tone or three-tone even as they age. They'll turn different colours. These are part shade or full sun, three to five centimetres deep, 50 to 70 centimetres in height. These are geraniums, hardy geraniums called Breeder's Mix. They're beautiful colours, pinks, purples. They should be 30 to 50 centimetres in height, part shade again to full sun, three to five centimetres deep. I have three of the Veronicastrums and three of the Echinaceas and six of the geraniums. Oh we've got a bit of sunshine. So first of all I'm going to dot around the Veronicastrum. They're going to be beautiful purple spires. I do have a Veronicastrum just here. That's the Veronicastrum which is beginning to poke up. So, oh Lottie's having a little sunbathe. How's the brown load? Half hour. Oh lovely. Now I have a question for your viewers. Oh. Come with me. Okay. What could this be? This summer I'm going to give the shower, without it, a new leash of life. Fabulous. I think it needs it. Now I want to spray, I'm going to spray it. What colour do you think? Do you know I've been thinking that? Because you don't just want to do it the same do you? I'm putting it out to your viewers. Okay. I won't necessarily take their advice but what colour do you think the fountain should be this summer? Okay well please leave your comments in the comment section below and we will have a, maybe, shall we go with the majority? Whatever people think. No I'm not going to commit to anything. Okay. But who knows? Okay. So it's been grey. It originally is grey. You can see the original paint is there. Which was nice because it went with the little mirror didn't it? Yeah. So and then of course, it was the white sanitary wear option. Oh yes. Very briefly. They looked like a toilet as someone very, very kindly pointed out. Well we did listen so we didn't mind and it made us laugh. Yes and then it's the terracotta but what we are going to definitely do this time round is spray it with varnish afterwards Richard so that we never have to do this again. It makes sense otherwise this is going to happen again. Anyway that's it. Come up. What colour do you think he should be? Bye. Thanks everyone. We would appreciate your comments. Anyway back to the Veronicastrum. I've forgotten where I said yes let's start those about the Veronicastrums are going one is going there where that bag is that's one and then over here we have another one which is going down here that's the second one so we have one there one over there and then one over here where the hebe is I'm happy with that now let's look at the Echinaceas. Right Echinaceas are going I'm trying to do them at equal distances and I'm trying to think that a repeat planting will look nice so we're going to try one here even though it's the shade we're going to try one there and then we're going to have one here and where have I put the last one we've put the other one over around here so they are those and then with the geraniums I have six of those so what I'm going to do we have one section two sections three sections four five so we'll try a geranium in each section and at least one more so one of the sections is going to have two let's stop those around and I think the first set of geraniums can go just here but they just need to go three to five centimeters deep and make sure the roots are nice and splayed out which they're quite wide big enough oh I didn't mention what's happening about the mulch haven't mentioned that have I well regarding the mulch I'm still thinking about it the tree place didn't get back to me but on reflection of the tree place I'm thinking because it's cut up trees it's going to be like very light color which I'm not so sure so I would like the look of that so I'm not so worried that the tree place hasn't got back to me about that that's about three to five centimeters I'll put some starter fertilizer down so now I'm thinking of bags of mulch instead yes bags eh Lottie but I would need a lot of bags because it was if you if you saw that video it was 54 meters 54 meters that I need to cover it's going to be a lot of money and I'm thinking it will cost me maybe around 200 pounds to mulch if I get all different bags and stuff just think of the plants that I could buy with 200 pounds so I'm still thinking about it and I will let you know obviously if that plan comes to fruition now let me plant all the rest of my plants in exactly the same manner okay so they are all planted fabulous it's funny because you think things are going to take five minutes and they don't but I haven't labeled anything maybe I should have but I didn't and so I can't plant anything else until perennials start poking through I'll have to remember that yes I think I'll plant the cannas which I have a beautiful collection from Farmer Gracie but they can't go outside until the first frost risk of first frost is over which will for me will be at least the middle of May so what I'm going to do is plant those up into pots put them on my windowsill in the kitchen because they need to be nice and warm as well as the same thing for my caladium bulbs I have two varieties which I'll show you on the screen here both gorgeous in fact I left ordering caladiums a little bit too late in the day because a lot of them were sold out but I'm happy with the ones I have I did toy with the idea of putting all these cannas and caladiums perhaps on heat mats and try them in my little greenhouse but then I thought well it does say that they can take up to a month to start sprouting so I think in this climate of being careful with our energy me having heat mats on outside in my greenhouse probably not the most economical and best thing to do so I'm going to put them on trays in my windowsill when they start poking up and growing through which could be up to a month as I say then I'll show you how they're getting on but that's it for today I think I've done enough and I need to have a nice rest on this beautiful Sunday I hope you've enjoyed this video and thank you for joining me take care I'm Jeannette I'm The Enthusiastic Gardener and thank you for watching bye